A femtocell base station is a cellular base station configured for a small cell, or coverage area, examples of which include a residence, a small business, a building, or a small area. As such, the femtocell base station, such as for example a home base station (HNB) or a home E-UTRAN (evolved Universal Mobile Telecommunications System Terrestrial Radio Access Network) Node B base station (HeNB), may have functionality similar to a typical base station, such as an E-UTRAN Node B (eNB) base station, but the femtocell base station may have less range and power given its limited coverage area. For example, the femtocell base station may have power sufficient for a cell serving wireless devices within a limited range of about tens of meters.
Picocell base stations are another example of a small cell base station, but picocell base stations have somewhat greater range serving a small cell on the order of about 100-200 meters. Accordingly, wireless service providers view the femtocell base station and the picocell base station as a way to extend service coverage into a small cell, as a way to offload traffic to the femtocell base station, and/or as a way to provide enhanced service, such as higher data rates and the like, within the small cell, when compared to the larger macrocell served by a typical base station, such as the eNB base station.